Sugar union slams Joseph

Newsday exclusively reported yesterday Joseph’s revelation on Sunday that Cabinet had approved the transfer of 100 acres of land from Caroni to the Prisons Service to facilitate the construction of several “key facilities.”

When asked by Newsday to elaborate on what he meant by “key facilities” and if any of those facilities was a new prison, the minister responded by saying that all he had to say was contained in the speech he delivered at the Prisons Service’s inter-faith mass at the Arima Presbyterian Church on Sunday.

ATSGWTU President General Rudranath Indarsingh yesterday said Joseph’s statements were consistent with what appeared to be a policy of discrimination against former Caroni workers by the Government.

Following the closure of the State sugar company in August 2003, then Agriculture (now Health) Minister John Rahael said Caroni lands would be made available to former Caroni workers for housing and residential purposes.

The management of Caroni’s 77,000 land acreage and other assets has since been turned over to the Estate Management and Business Development Company.

Indarsingh lamented that three years after the closure of Caroni, the promises made by Government are nowhere close to being kept.

He said while Government has distributed two agricultural plots to some of the former sugar workers to date, there remained concerns over whether these people have been provided with the appropriate levels of technical and financial support in order to engage in sustainable economic activities on their new lands.

The union leader claimed that some of the former workers who received agricultural plots have no title of lease to those lands and this makes it difficult for them to get financing from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) or any other financial institution.

Indarsingh also claimed that none of the Caroni’s 9,000 workers has received lands for housing to date.

He questioned whether Joseph’s statements were reflective of an attitude of arrogance on the part of the Government and that the State was not willing to honour its agreement with the former sugar workers. Indarsingh said this was why the union has been working closely with former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and a case filed by 38 ex-Caroni workers over Government’s promises of lands to them will be heard before Justice Lennox Deyalsingh on September 21.